APM Oilpan Rev. H, Version 1.0 now in production!

The new ArduPilotMega Shield "Hotel' Version 1.0 has finally replaced our old and problematic Foxtrap 2.2, many of the changes are just to accelerate the assembly process and reduce production failure rates, working in conjunction with the very supportive Invensense Team (Thanks guys!).

Note: if you are a user with the current boards, they're fine. The problems were in the production process, which required us to go through extra steps to ensure they passed QA. The new board is more for our sake than yours!

Manufacture changes:-Improved gyro pads.-The boards now came with Lead-Free Silver Immersion for an even surface (Turns goldy when baked).-Added one 0603 resistor pad on voltage divider for automatic machine placement. I should have added it to all the resistors. =/

User Experience:-Now that is easy to assemble, boards availability will be improved. -Solder jumpers to optionally enable/disable gyro low pass filters. -Added labels that suggest where the female headers should be placed.

Bugs fixed:-Reset button now works under any condition. -Analog supply for the pressure sensor is now attached to the analog 3.3 voltage regulator.

By the time I wrote this post I still had some Oilpan in stock, please hurry because we are moving to a new warehouse and we may be out for around one week again, just in time to start production with our new Japanese made Manncorp 7722V. Many thanks to the Mancorp team that is also located next to us in San Diego,CA!

The changes are just to make the boards easier to make--they don't change the end-user function. If you have a board, it was checked and often hand-soldered to correct any issues, so it's fine. That's good for users, but it made the boards hard to make and slowed us down. The new boards, as Jordi says, are mostly to ensure that we can keep up with demand and serve all users promptly.

But let me reinforce another point: this is a open source project that is based on rapid innovation and improvement. If you're not comfortable with that and want products that remain unchanged for years, this is not the right project for you. Check out PicoPilot instead ;-)

Chris, thanks for your clarification. No problems for me that it's open source (a huge plus - I want to fiddle!) and has rapid development. Just was a little crestfallen when Jordi described Foxtrap 2.2 as problematic. Glad to know it's only from a manufacturing POV. I flew my desk with it last night and was very pleased at how quickly I got APM up and running, firstly with the debug modes and then as a HITL with X-Plane. Quite impressed, so far! :)

Yes the functionally on the air is 100% the same, only in ground the reset button do not work when the FTDI is plugged. I added the solder jumpers to the low pass filters because quads can't fly with caps and the aircraft's perform better with the caps (I love those accelerometers that allows you to enable/disable low pass filters internally and you can even choose from 3-4 different options). I leaved the capacitors open because is easier to solder a point than removing it